Saturday, September 21, 2013

The final resting place of my inspiration

Those of you who have been here at all know just how my Buddy Wayne Barefoot character got my name.

The original Buddy Wayne, as found in a phone directory published in the Benson, NC addition to the 1993 Raleigh phone directory by BellSouth (now part of AT&T), was actually named Alfred Wayne Barefoot, whose nickname was Buddy. As I have written before, he died on Jan. 25, 1999, 10 days shy of what would have been his 45th birthday.

The grave, as shown, has the inscriptions "husband," "daddy," and "gone not forgotten." (Alfred left a wife, Carol, a son, Bradley, and a daughter, Amanda, who was the basis for the look of B.W.'s "first cousin" Brandy.) On the base of the marker are two stones, one with the logo of Duke University's sports teams (he loved to watch the basketball team play) and another with the words "eternal love." Finally, there are three cars, as Alfred worked at Capital Ford in Raleigh and may have also been a fan of NASCAR or another form of motorsports. The final, and most important, item on the marker is a picture of Alfred himself.

Yes, this is sad, but also fascinating to see the representation of the person whose name in the phone book changed my life (or at least made it less boring).

(The grave site is the Pink Barefoot Cemetery in Benson. It is named for Miles Vinson "Pink" Barefoot, who once owned the property and is also buried there. Of the 137 people buried there, 69 carry the Barefoot last name and at least some of the others are related in some way.)

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BWBarefoot is actually Desmond Hobson, author of The Buddy Wayne Chronicles. He is a student at ABC Adult School in Cerritos, CA, where he is taking various classes in computer programming. He hopes to return to the work force someday.